Religious Education

IF INDIA is not to declare spiritual bankruptcy, religious instruction of its youth must be held to be at least as necessary as secular instruction. It is true that knowledge of religious books is no equivalent of that of religion. But if we cannot have religion, we must be satisfied with providing our boys and girls with what is next best. And where there is such instruction given in the schools or not, grown up students must cultivate the art of self-help about matters religious as about other. They may start their own class, just as they have their debating and now spinners' clubs.

— Young India : Aug. 25, 1927

A Curriculum of Religious Instruction

A curriculum of religious instruction should include a study of the tenets of faiths other than one's own. For this purpose, the students should be trained to cultivate the habit of understanding and appreciating the doctrines of various great religions of the world in a spirit of reverence and broad-minded tolerance. This, if properly done, would help to give them a spiritual assurance and a better appreciation of their own religion. There is one rule, however, which should always be kept in mind while studying all great religions and that is that one should study them only through the writings of known votaries of the respective religions. For instance, if one wants to study the Bhagavata, one should do so not through a translation of it made by a hostile critic, but one prepared by a lover of the Bhagavata. Similarly, to study the Bible, one should study it through the commentaries of devoted Christians. This study of other religions besides one's own will give one a grasp of the rock-bottom unity of all religions, and afford a glimpse also of that universal and absolute Truth which lies beyond the ''dust of creeds and faiths.'

—Young India : Dec. 6, 1928